Loosely translated, Happy Chinese New Year! Actually the New Year was Jan. 29, but no doubt the celebration welcoming the year of the dog is ongoing. In my line of work it means three days of sleep, followed by a week to catch up on work!

We may have missed the parties in Hong Kong, but you can spy on the action with these webcams.

January 27, 2006

I left the undisclosed location yesterday. Sometimes my diplomatic duties make it a neccessary. Things sure are screwed up out there. I would think you guys would be begging for the coming MAWB revolution.

It's not surprising that water sellers would be in on the racket. Have you noticed you can buy the 24 oz. bulk in the grocery store - which are too big for your standard cup holder OR you can buy the 16 something ouncers - which are, of course, too small for your cupholder. What you can't buy bulk in the grocery store is the 21 oz version that fits in your cupholder. No. No. No. You can only buy those in singles for $1.30 each. We're now developing a super-secret Goldilocks weapon to deal with that situation.

Oh and the BP station with the car wash in Forest Lake? Nice how you crank up the speed on that baby on good washing days. In and out in five seconds flat. It almost made me seasick. I checked the manual with the van and they don't say a thing about washing and waxing simultaneously. Is that new technology?

I'm making a list. We're setting up some nice cages. Of course you might get stuck next to the flingers. You know what I'm saying, right? Fair warning.

January 26, 2006

We are an independent production company and core group of Browncoats.
We are not affiliated with 20th Century Fox or Universal Pictures.

We are currently pursuing the rights to continue the series from Fox and make it
available to the fans, either directly or via another broadcaster.

Yes! I'll buy it! Just tell me where to sign! The movie, Serenity, was great, but lacked the warmth of the series. The best format to tell the story of the Firefly crew is episodic. Check out the website. There's a survey you can take anonymously if you choose. With so much crap on TV, I hate to see a really good show die a premature death.

January 24, 2006

What, we weren't talking about Apple? Well, buck up, 'cause I'm talking about Apple. I missed my chance to say. "I Want One!", so I'm doing it now. Of course I want one. I am the American consumer personified! Engine of the economy! You really should be thanking me. (Their employees should definitely be thanking me.)

We were Apple before Apple was cool. 1984 punk. Match that you iPod waanabees. We were thinking different before they even thought of thinking different. Where's my lunch with the designer like the cool kids?

There was another reason, though, why hundreds of thousands of liberals
around the country found themselves addictively checking and rechecking
Daily Kos as the 2004 election approached. It made them think Democrats
were going to win. Moulitsas wasn't just posting any polls, he was
selecting those that suggested Democrats from John Kerry to
congressional candidates were heading for victory, while downplaying
less encouraging signs. It left liberals trapped in a bubble of
reassurance. Heading into the election, it would have been reasonable
to assume from the evidence presented on Daily Kos that Kerry was the
clear favorite to beat Bush, and that Democrats were likely to pick up
seats in both houses of Congress.

Kos has learned the key to every snake oil salesman's success. Tell the public what they want to hear! No wonder the hard left thinks the election was rigged. With every carefully selected post their beloved Kos told them they were winners.

All of Kos's confident predictions had been wrong. "It's a valid
criticism. Looking back, I was too optimistic," Moulitsas told me. "[At] the beginning, I didn't even know what a margin of error was."

That's right. Reporting only the polls that prop up your position is just "optimistic". Certainly not fuel to boost traffic and therefore his own power within the party.

Worse, Kos hadn't just fared poorly as an armchair quarterback, he'd
been beaten on the field, too. In the Democratic primaries, he first
backed Dean, then Wesley Clark. Both sparked grassroots excitement, but
ultimately, of course, flamed out. Then, of the 13 Democratic
candidates for Congress that Moulitsas handpicked for his readers to
support, and for whom he raised over $500,000, not a single one
prevailed.

So Kos put his readers in a bubble, only reporting the news that looked good for them. Then reality intrudes. The election results are utter failure. You'd expect some people to catch on, right? But, the snake oil is addictive.

Many expected Moulitsas's readership to shrivel after the election.
Instead, it has nearly doubled; so, it often seems, has his influence.

Kos is invited to give an election post mortem by Senate Democrats. "You've failed completely? Welcome to the halls of power my son!" As long as Democrats prize passion over being right, are content to live inside the bubble, and reward failure, the citizens will recognize that the adults, the Republicans, are the only party fit to lead the country.

January 20, 2006

Take this MENSA test and find out. The ones that stumped me were 28, 30, 31, and 33, (though I do think I've seen some of these before somewhere.) I may have gotten question 28 eventually, but there's no way I would have figured out the other three. So I googled them. Loves the internet, I do.

Snuck up on you, didn't I? Thanks to those of you who asked about M.A.W.B. Squad. No promises.